


A Rhapsody Of Rainbows & Ashes

by LLReid



Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novels)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Bisexual Character, Bisexuality, Canon LGBTQ Character, Canon LGBTQ Female Character, F/F, Gay Pride, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Pansexual Character, Pride, Pride 2020, Pride Parades, Same-Sex Marriage, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24636004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Fic inspired by Tyler Ward & Alex G’s cover of ‘Born This Way’~~~~~“I was seventeen and had arrived here literally three days before. I was kind of still in the closet but the door was, like, wide open, you know? But being here and seeing so many people who were proud to be like me, I felt like I could finally stop worrying if the girls I liked would leave when they found out I also like dick. I could stop worrying that people would think I just wanted attention. I realised I didn’t have to explain that I fall in love with souls, not genders or body parts. Here, people wouldn't say I'm 'just a slut' or 'faking it' or 'undecided' or 'confused.' I realised that I’ve never been confused about who I am, it was the people who’d been telling me I was confused that were confused all along.”
Relationships: Kamilah Sayeed & Lysimachus Sayeed, Kamilah Sayeed/Anastasia Sayeed, Kamilah Sayeed/Anastasia Swann, Kamilah Sayeed/Main Character (Bloodbound)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	A Rhapsody Of Rainbows & Ashes

“So, you’ve lived in New York since the mid 1700s and you’ve really never been to any sort of Pride event?,” Anastasia asked.

“My love, enlighten me as to what it is about me that gives you the impression that being surrounded by drunken, heat stroked mortals dressed like clowns is something I’d find in any way a pleasurable experience?,” the ancient vampire asked her wife. 

She’d been content to stay home and garden whilst Anastasia celebrated the event with Lily and Adrian, but the younger woman simply wouldn’t take no for an answer. And Kamilah was — as Lily frequently remarked — whipped. So whipped that she’d somehow been convinced to dawn a t-shirt with the bisexuality flag printed on the front, and Converse with the rainbow flag across the bottom — an outfit that matched Anastasia’s almost identically. It really was quite a delightful problem to have, all Anastasia had to do was bat her eyelashes and Kamilah’s stoic resolve melted away entirely. 

“You’re the life and soul of every party,” Anastasia replied sarcastically. “A bundle of fun. Not a murderous homicidal maniac or in any way intimidating at all. A ray of sunshine, if you will—“

Kamilah snorted and playfully smacked her wife’s backside over her jean shorts. This woman was her kryptonite.

“And you’re a pervert. Spanking me in public like this is some shady underground BDSM club and not an upscale bar,” the redhead giggled into the Cosmo she was drinking. She was slender, and wonderfully graceful. Except that her movements were languid — very languid — indeed, the amount of alcohol she had consumed would either have required a trip to the hospital or killed her on the spot if she were still mortal.

“I know.” She raised her eyebrows and her grin broadened into a huge goofy smile. “And I know you enjoyed it.”

Anastasia smirked at her. “I’m so into it. Do it again.”

“I am not bending you over my knee and spanking you in public.”

“You went down on me at the Met Gala last year, and just last week you tied me up and gagged me with your panties in the storage closet in your office with a remote controlled vibrator between my legs whilst you held a board meeting on the other side of the door.”

Kamilah shrugged, an amused smirk playing at the corners of her lips. “I’m a pervert and you’re an exhibitionist, what did you expect?”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” she scolded. “You’re also a sadist.”

“And you’re a brat.”

“Yeah, but I’m your brat. And you’re my sadistic pervert,” Anastasia giggled. She nuzzled her neck and littered a few chaste kisses down the right side, before playfully scraping her teeth against the pulse point and biting down.

A soft groan escaped from the back of Kamilah’s throat and her hand fisted in her wife’s hair. When she spoke, her voice was far breathier than normal, “Indeed, yours.”

They both shared a laugh and glanced towards their friends across the rooftop bar that was painted with the pinks and golds of a warm June evening. Both Lily and Adrian were chatting with attractive mortals and seemed very likely to have a night of fun ahead of them. It was one of Kamilah’s favourite times of day: that perfect in-between moment when the light had a liquid feel, like a slow pour of syrup. The sun was already setting over Manhattan, it’s rays no longer powerful enough to harm them, but strong enough that they could feel the warmth of the day. The rainbow decorations strung up around the outdoor area stood out against the beautiful sky that looked more like a Van Gogh acid trip than something that occurred in nature.

The tiniest hint of a smile twitched at the corners of Kamilah’s lips as she continued the sweet, leisurely combing of her fingers through the length of Anastasia’s gorgeous red hair. It was a smile that was reserved only for her, one so subtle and rare that would be completely imperceptible to anyone else. She never imagined that she’d know someone so well it was like she was a part of her. That she’d be known that well, in turn. Yet that was exactly what had happened. After more than two thousand years of wandering the Earth, she finally had a home — a home where she had built her life. 

Anastasia snuggled further into the warmth of her embrace, the younger vampire’s lips seeking hers, beseeching her, worshipping her, cherishing her... loving her unconditionally and openly. The redhead tilted her head back to look her in the eyes. A sweet little smile twitched at the corners of her lips, her blue gaze deep enough to drown in. She simply sat there for a moment, gazing at her like she was a work of art, and in that instant Kamilah felt their connection so strongly it was as though it achieved physical existence, became a hand all around them, cupping them together, protecting them from the world. This was what people were always talking about when they talked about god, she realised: this feeling, of being held and understood and protected and accepted. Feeling this way seemed about as close to saying a prayer as Kamilah Sayeed could possibly get.

It still amazed her how easy it was for things to change, how easy it was to start off down the same road you always take and somehow wind up somewhere completely new and unexplored. Just one false step, one pause, one detour, and you end up with a new life entirely. It’d never occurred to her before; she’d never been able to see it. She knew with certainty that one could build a future out of anything. A scrap, a flicker. The desire to go forward, slowly, one foot at a time. You could build a whole empire out of ruins. Out of the ash, she knew, flowers would grow.

“Thank you for coming with me today,” Anastasia breathed. “I know this wasn’t exactly your cup of tea, but I appreciate you pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Your company always makes everything more enjoyable.”

“I'm blown away by how happy you make me. Thank you for being there for me when I'm stupid enough to think I'd rather be alone.” Kamilah drew Anastasia’s hand to her lips and kissed her knuckles before pressing her palm against hers. Her hands were longer, her fingers rougher from more than two millennia of near constant combat, but she was quite certain her fingers had been made to fit in the spaces between Anastasia’s. “I wouldn’t be opposed to making this an annual thing. It wasn’t— It— It was interesting for me to see. We didn’t have events like this for most of my life. I had to hide my sexuality along with the fact I’m a vampire for more than two thousand years... it wasn’t always easy.”

She’d never understood straight people’s hatred for those who were unlike them. Even as a child it had been a concept she honestly could not grasp. To her, it was not who a person loved; a man, a woman, or someone who identified as neither: it was the fact that they loved at all that mattered. No matter whether a couple was LGBTQ or mixed race; when two people were drawn together, ultimately it didn’t matter what everybody thought because it was so honest, true, and sincere. How could that ever be wrong? How could that ever be ugly?

If someone was a woman, a person of colour, a vampire, if they were gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, a person of larger size, a person extreme intelligence, a person of integrity, then they were considered a minority in this world. And for the first two millennia of Kamilah’s life as a person of multiple minorities, it had been really difficult to find messages of self-love and support anywhere. So seeing what she’d witnessed at her first Pride Parade... it’d been far more moving than she’d initially thought that it would be.

Race, gender, religion, sexuality, people were all people and that was it. All people. All the same. All equal, regardless of what society said. With people’s ignorance came fear — from fear came the infuriating bigotry. The Bible, or whatever other religious text they used to justify their beliefs, was only ever as good and decent as the person reading it. Education and representation were very clearly the keys to acceptance and progress.

“It must be weird for you, you know, now that you don’t have to hide either of those things.”

“Indeed, but in a good way,” she smiled. “I feared this event would be yet another party to entertain straight people and assuage their guilt for years of needless oppression.”

“I did, too, my first time. But coming to the parade actually helped me accept myself more than anything else ever has.”

“It did?”

“I was seventeen and had arrived here literally three days before. I was kind of still in the closet but the door was, like, wide open, you know? But being here and seeing so many people who were proud to be like me, I felt like I could finally stop worrying if the girls I liked would leave when they found out I also like dick. I could stop worrying that people would think I just wanted attention. I realised I didn’t have to explain that I fall in love with souls, not genders or body parts. Here, people wouldn't say I'm 'just a slut' or 'faking it' or 'undecided' or 'confused.' I realised that I’ve never been confused about who I am, it was the people who’d been telling me I was confused that were confused all along.” She paused and took a long sip out of her cocktail. “Being here made me realise that I didn’t have to agree with the people who tried to dictate to me who I'm allowed to like and who I'm allowed to love. Love doesn't have to fit into boxes like that. It's only limited by our perceptions and before we slap a label on it and stuff it into some category to make straight people feel more comfortable, everything is possible. Love is a wildfire that cannot be contained.”

Kamilah’s jaw dropped, the way it always tended to when she and Anastasia would discuss their respective sexualities. The rhapsodies her wife would speak would always strike straight to her heart and make her feel understood. 

It was so funny to her, most people could be around someone and they gradually begin to love them and never know exactly when it happened; but Kamilah knew the very second it happened to her. When Anastasia had grinned at her one evening as they’d tried and failed to bake cookies whilst discussing their sexualities for the first time. The way she spoke so eloquently and openly, far beyond what she’d expected from one so young, had enraptured her so much that they’d burnt the cookies. All the feelings that she had been trying to hold back had come flooding through her as she picked her brain, and it was at that second in time that she knew she loved her with all her heart.

“I feel like I can finally breathe,” she agreed. “Like I’m...”

“Free,” Anastasia murmured.

Kamilah nodded. “Like I’m free.”

Their lips brushed in a whisper of a kiss. It was sweet and wonderful at the same time. When Kamilah looked into her eyes, she could see without a doubt that she loved her more than anyone else in the world, that she was her salvation, the same way that she was hers. If someone had told her that the one night spent upstate at Adrian’s cabin in the woods would’ve lead to this, she’d never have dared believe it. Dared to imagine a new way of living — one without massacres and torn throats and bonfires of the fallen, without revenants or bastard armies or mortals ripped from their mothers’ arms to take their turn in the killing and dying. But the greatest and most powerful of revolutions always start very quietly, hidden in the shadows.

The cold and impassive facade that she had once dawned every waking moment had long since crumbled to ash. Her life had opened up and flooded with colour when Anastasia had walked into it, and she was so happy. Really, truly happy. That happiness wasn’t always made of fun little dates. It was made of solid, real life things — things that she would have once considered to be dreadfully mundane. It was made of their terrible cooking when they couldn’t decide what to order in and clean clothing, and slow dances in the garden on a rainy summer night, and a woman who could look her in the eye when she came home because she had nothing to hide from her. It was not as rare as Kamilah had always believed it to be. In fact, it was so common people simply didn’t notice it most of the time. They looked for red roses and grand gestures, when they should have been looking for the smaller things. Happiness. It was the place where passion, with all its dazzle and drumbeat, met something softer: homecoming and safety and pure sunbeam comfort. It was all those things, intertwined with the heat and the thrill, and it was as bright within her as a swallowed star.

“Lysimachus would have loved this,” she smiled. “He struggled more than I did when we were young. He never could find it in his heart to accept himself, he always assumed that he was broken because the mere thought of being intimate with anyone repulsed him.”

Anastasia squeezed her hand tightly. “I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been for him. Being asexual nowadays is still difficult and often misunderstood... but two thousand years ago... I can’t even begin to imagine.”

“He forced himself into relationships so that he’d appear ‘normal’ to those around us, but he was miserable. I can’t even tell you how often he cried in my arms and begged me to find some way to help him, how often he prayed that something or someone would ‘cure’ him.” 

“No one should have to hold back who they are. It’s not okay… it’s not a good thing. There have always been people like us and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted. It’s not fair. It should never have happened.”

“He certainly didn’t deserve the anger and self-hatred he turned on himself.” Kamilah sighed and drained her Martini glass. She remembered everything about how her brother had struggled, about how he’d hurt— with an effort. She saw it all, as divers saw what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but transparent film. “I wish I could tell him that there was never anything wrong with him that required curing. I wish he could see it with his own two eyes.”

Anastasia looped her pretty arms about Kamilah’s neck and drew her close to her. She lay her cheek to hers and murmured with her lips near her ear, “He knows, darling. He knows.”

Kamilah pulled her wife onto her lap and held her there with a fond pressure, her ancient soul renewed again and again by her presence. She simply watched her for a few moments, saying nothing, but blushing softly and gazing at her face with burning golden eyes, breathing so deeply that her chest visibly rose and fell with each respiration. She wondered, how could someone have the power to shatter her to dust — and also make her feel so whole?

Anastasia leaned in, her lips were soft and left hers tingling. She closed her eyes, and in the darkness behind them she saw beautiful blooming things, flowers spinning like snowflakes, and fluttering hummingbirds beating the same dizzying rhythm as her heart. She was gone, lost, floating away into nothingness like she was in a dream. It was such a pleasant feeling — like soaring, like being totally free. Anastasia’s other hand pushed chocolate hair from her face, and she could feel the impression of her fingers everywhere that they touched, and she thought of shooting stars streaking through the sky and leaving blazing trails behind them, and in that moment — however long it lasted, seconds, minutes — whilst she was mumbling her name into her mouth and Kamilah was breathing into hers, she realised, that Anastasia was the first and only person who’d ever kissed her like that.

Kamilah’s lips traveled across Anastasia’s cheek in hot kisses; and she whispered, “I love you, so, so much.”

Anastasia brushed her thumb over Kamilah’s lower lip and caressed her jaw, her blue eyes blazing bright as a fallen star crashing into orbit. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper, “I love you, too. Always.”

\- fin.


End file.
